


Dear captain you must flee

by hala_macaron



Series: My heart belongs to words and is stained with ink [3]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-05
Updated: 2020-08-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 03:46:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25726882
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hala_macaron/pseuds/hala_macaron
Summary: If she is to die, the sea will know of her anger.
Series: My heart belongs to words and is stained with ink [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1755703





	Dear captain you must flee

Were you to ask the sailors setting out this morning, they would grin at you, showing off crooked teeth and tell you that they were excited to set out. They do not fear the sea and her moods, her unforgiving grasp on any and all boats that set out to search to gain her treasures and learn her secrets. The sea, they would say, is an unforgiving mistress, cruel and cold. She does not give life, her water too salty to sustain human life.

They love her nonetheless.

Kiana thinks that the sailors are far from wrong; the sea can indeed be cruel and cold, destructive and all consuming at her worst. Yet humans are not perfect either. Kiana has met one or two governors that were colder than the sea could ever hope to be. They weren’t icy in demeanour, but their very soul was colder than any winter wave, tinted red from the blood on their ledgers and as grey as the corpses on the street whenever snow fell.

Yes, the sea is unforgiving to those who search to know her secrets without having been given permission to do so. She is not seduced by the thirst and greed lingering in the eyes of men when they gaze upon her horizon.

The sea, Kiana thinks, is a matter of things. She is warm and truthful, loyal and nurturing to those she calls her own. She gladly eases her waves and beckons her children to play near the surface when she senses curiosity lighten a sailor’s heart.

Above all, the sea is a mother. And Kiana has long since longed to see her gentleness for herself. To greet her children and her wards with the respect they deserve. There is, technically, nothing that should keep her from doing so. Except that there is.

Women are not allowed on ships. They are bad luck, according to whatever myth the men sailing the sea have pulled out of a pint this week. But Kiana has never gained anything in life by growing comfortable in the bonds propriety and rules placed on her. So she steals a drunk sailor’s clothes and escapes to the docks in the dead of night. It’s exhilarating. The faster she runs, winding through streets and masterfully running into at least one fruit cart on her way, the more she feels like the wind: free and powerful, unbound. In a fit of giggles and a high previously unknown to her, Kiana thinks the wind is running by her side, caressing this strange new child that will set out on the waves of her consort.

The first part is easy, so traitorously easy that it lulls Kiana in a false sense of security faster than a spider webs up their prey. She gets on the ship. The captain eyes her curiously but shrugs, and she’s part of the crew faster than she could have hoped for.

They set sail. It’s wonderful. At night, the sky is alight with too many stars to count in ten lifetimes. They twinkle and dance to the songs of the wind and the waves, and sometimes, when Kiana is on watch and she sits as still as a rock, she hears voices from below the water surface. They call to her, but they do not sing of her doom, they do not sing sickly sweet as if honey was dripping from their lips and stick their lips together. Instead they sing of the sun, how its fire bleeds deep into the waters of their mother when it rises and sets. They tell her of the moon and the light that is not, deep down below the glittering, gentle waves. They tell her of their home and sometimes, they sing absolute gibberish she does not understand, but she detects the emotions in it anyways: the humour and the fear, the sadness and pity for a crime not yet committed.

A fortnight into the journey the weather changes. The sea is angry, as is the sky. Perhaps they are mourning, perhaps they are simply in need of a rant. Kiana does not care very much, for she is too busy holding on for dear life. A few of her crew-mates find their deaths that night, some in the waters, others drench the wooden planks of the ship with their blood.

The next day she is stripped, bound in chains and presented to the captain. ‘This,’ he proclaims, staring at her with distaste, ‘is the reason for the deaths of our brothers. The sea, our tempting sorceress, thinks we seek to betray her by having a woman on our ship! We must make amends.’ He stares down at Kiana. ‘I would gag you, so you could not seduce the monsters of the sea, but you are death personified; you do not deserve one strip of cloth to your person.’

When they drop her into the sea below, Kiana thinks of howling her pain and fear to the rapidly vanishing sky. Everything around her is blurry and cold, she can’t make out anything but vast, blue emptiness. A sob rises in her throat but she does not have the air to let it out. She will die, she realises, and now it is not sadness and fear bubbling in her chest and rising in her throat, but anger.

If she is to die, the sea will know of her anger. Kiana screams, watches the bubbles rise to the surface and curses the ship and its crew to whatever deity may listen to a drowning woman.

And a deity listens indeed. Whatever else the sea may be, she is a mother above all. She has more children and charges than she can count, but she listens to them all and knows their names. She does not abandon her children. Her new daughter has much love for her and her other children, but also a rising thirst for revenge. The goddess hums, delighted. She knows where Kiana fits, and as she surrounds her daughter she calls forth a nearby group of sirens.

Kiana should be drowning, but she isn’t. Slowly the panic ebbs away, her sight becoming less blurry. She takes a breath and counts from ten backwards, relishing in the soft hug of the water. Her legs have grown and merged together, created something new and shimmering, silver like the stars. There are webs between her fingers and nails that are more akin to claws now. Someone lays a hand on her shoulder. The woman’s scales are red, her smile is softer than a summer breeze and she engulfs Kiana in a strong hug.

‘A sister!’ she calls out to a group of men and women behind her. When her eyes fix on Kiana again, they blaze like the bleeding fire she had been told about. It takes Kiana a second to understand who swims before her, who surrounds her, and who she belongs to now. She has heard the stories before, of course. The stories of terrible deaths on sea, of murders and drownings and cruel deaths brought about by equally cruel humans. The births of sirens.

As she swims with her brethren, following the subtle scents of wood and certain death, she hums a melody she has never known. To her ears it sounds like a killer’s lullaby, possessive and darker than the souls of the men who had killed her.

Tonight, her mother’s waters will be stained red.


End file.
